Tag Archives: be who you are

“I’ve accepted that everyone in my life is bound to hurt me but now I have to figure out who’s worth suffering for.”

—–

Bob Marley (maybe said this)

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Well.

When I saw the Marley quote the first time I thought about … well … ideas.

Ideas — thoughts about what to do as well as thoughts about oneself.

Uhm.

I would suggest that ideas … and thoughts about yourself … are inextricably linked together. I say that because behind every good idea, and bad idea, is some relationship between you <the idea creator> and someone else <a possible idea destroyer>.

Behind every good idea is a good friend.

Behind every bad idea, and thought, is a bad friend.

And you know what?

It could be exactly the same friend.

Friends have an incredible knack for exploiting the cracks & crevasses in ourselves.

Why do I think this happens?

People, humans, individuals, are much much better at destroying something than they are creating something.

It’s not that we enjoy destroying <although there is some inherent satisfaction in taking shit apart> but I just think <know> it is easier.

Why the hell wouldn’t do something that was easier?

That’s why in business there are a shitload of people that can destroy ideas, people, thoughts, process, systems & institutions and a significantly smaller group of people who know how to build, create and navigate taking an insight into real action.

There are derivates of this thought like … “easier to criticize than …” … “easier to edit it than create” … “easier to find reasons to not do than to do” and, of course, “you have to break the pattern to create a new one.”

But at the core of all the snazzy little catch phrases is the fact 80% of people <at a minimum> know how to destroy and only 20% <at best> know how to create.

People just are better at dividing & destroying rather than effectively combining & creating something that ‘holds’.

But.

……….. Pierre Pauselli …………..

The biggest thing you have to accept is that some people do it because it is easy and, unfortunately, some people do with a sense of focus, ferocity and frequency that … well … it just isn’t being done because it is easy but rather it is being done because they <a> gain personal satisfaction,<b> derive personal value and/or <c>are one of those people who simply enjoy destroying and dividing because it makes them look smarter (‘bigger’) in their own eyes.

Building self-value off of the easy path is kind of like admitting you are willing to be the tallest midget. The easy path, the ‘knee jerk’ path, only can help you reach a certain height.

A height? Yes.

But let’s say it can only attain a ‘rolling hill’ type height and not a Mount Everest type height.

The hardest paths in Life & business are the ones which offer the highest prizes – the monumental type wins <which offer you the highest self-value prizes also>.

Ah.

But my <c> … the ones who simply like destroying.

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‘I stopped holding on to people. I stopped revolving my world around them. If they stay, great; and if they don’t, others will come along and replace them, just like others would replace me.‘

—-

unknown

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Look.

Everything ends <at some point>.

Everyone is gonna hurt you <at some point>.

Nothing ever goes perfectly <at some point>.

Shit inevitably happens <at some point>.

Even creators are pretty damn good at destroying.

And creators don’t always create what they want to create.

Everyone knows how to destroy.

Not everyone either knows how to create let alone even how to create.

These are the Life truths no one sits you down and warns you about when you are a kid. In fact … many of these are mostly associated with the foibles of adulthood.

I don’t know why we don’t tell kids.

Maybe we want them to keep some of their childhood innocence or some stupid shit reason.

Shit.

I don’t know why we don’t tell adults.

Maybe we want them to keep some sense of the belief that anyone can create, good can come from destruction and ‘constructive criticism’ is a role of the ‘wise.’

Destroying shit is easy and you just should accept the fact that people will be more naturally inclined to do it … and not be disappointed or ‘suffer’ it.

Other than the assholes who seem to thrive only in destroying, most people are feeling their way through business and Life ‘becoming & unbecoming’ and part of that is learning what to destroy and how to create.

Saying that … well … I would say that you should probably very rarely treat someone as a finished human being.

And you should just accept the fact they will disappoint you on occasion and that is just a part of Life <and business> you just … well … suffer. Its aggravating and sometimes painful … but it is what it is.

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“It is not fair to treat people as if they are finished beings.

Everyone is always becoming and unbecoming.”

—-

Kathleen Winter

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Now.

THAT said … well … remember the ones I pointed out who only know how to destroy and actually seem to thrive on it?

Those you don’t suffer.

….. intelligence.org Nate Soares ………..

Especially in business.

In business you accept that people will hurt you and your ideas but there is absolutely a difference in types of hurt and the ‘destroyers’ should be insufferable.

Those who have no clue how to create anything and destroy aren’t worth a shit.

And you shouldn’t accept one sliver of suffering them.

Yeah.

I know.

In business some of these assholes actually make it to some senior position under the guise of ‘needed contrarianism’ and they aren’t really a contrarian … they are just simply someone who has no idea how to create anything.

And, yeah, you have to suffer them <at least for a while>.

But.

Here’s the good part.

You can make them suffer.

How?

Create something they can’t destroy. That kills them.

Anyway.

In the end.

Everyone is going to disappoint you at some point and a shitload of those same people will also hurt you in some way.

The truth is, in business & in Life, managing decisions is all about a thorough understanding of the decision’s hierarchy of needs & understanding the attributes surrounding those needs … and doing so in some finite amount of time … then decide that which generates the most rewarding outcome.

Uhm.

“Generates.”

Not all people can do this.

And, maybe worse, some people find ‘the most rewarding outcome’ is … well … not an outcome, nor ‘generating’, but rather destruction.

Just think about that for one last time.

If we all truly seek a rewarding outcome in which ‘rewarding’ is multiple in dimension — a rational reward and an emotional reward – it would seem to me that we would only suffer the people who desire this kind of outcome. Or at least only suffer those actually interested in generating a rewarding outcome.

Destruction is not a rewarding outcome to anyone but the destroyer.

We should never choose to suffer destroyers.

Be wary … very wary … of those who you struggle to find any rewarding outcomes associated with them but only find they thrive on destroying things.

And remember …

Behind every good idea is a good friend.

Behind every bad idea, and thought, is a bad friend.

And 90%+ of the people will attempt to kill your idea and it will be up to you, and how you feel about yourself, to create the possibility your idea will not be destroyed.

And more often than we would like to admit … it demands we place one foot on one side of a line and the other foot on the other side of the line.

That may not sound … well … right.

Or maybe the best thing to do.

It may even sound like I am suggesting you ‘straddle the fence.’

This isn’t straddling … this is about being grounded or balancing oneself.

If you don’t place one foot solidly on either side, you can be quite easily consumed by the extremes of Life which are, more often than not, found on only one side of a line.

If you don’t place one foot solidly on either side, you can be quite easily consumed by others who seek to consume what you may think you don’t really care that much about <but you should … and actually do when you care to think about t enough>.

If you don’t you can be quite easily … well … consumed.

I guess what I am saying is that Life demands you pragmatically be active in drawing some lines so that you have some sense of when you are getting too … well … “too”. So you can have some sense of … well … where to actually place your feet that is meaningful.

Maybe what I am saying is that many of us have no problem ‘making a stand’ but if you really aren’t sure where your line is then it is quite possible you aren’t really sure you are taking your stand in the right place.

Maybe think of it this way.

It’s kind of like making sure you have things in perspective when you take a stand.

It’s kind of like demanding realistic hope.

It’s kind of like demanding some hopeful despair.

It’s kind of like demanding you believe in some fairytales and some abyss-like darkness.

It’s kind of like demanding lines for yourself so you can deal with the lines Life is going to demand of you.

Look.

I don’t really believe there are angry people … they just have so much anger within themselves that their line is drawn differently than others.

I don’t really believe there are dreamers … they just have so much imagination within themselves that their line is drawn differently than others.

But here’s the deal.

You have to draw some lines.

There has to be some reality to ground some imagination.

There has to be some truth to ground some questioning.

There has to be some principles to ground some rebelliousness.

There has to be some fairytaleishness <I made up that word> to balance out some of the inevitable abyss.

You do have to have one foot somewhere other than where your other foot resides.

I know.

I know.

That sounds a little of whack from conventional wisdom because far more often you hear “both feet on the ground” and shit like that.

But if you have two feet on the line … well … you have chosen to stand on a thin balance beam and will teeter your entire life. That is tiring & dangerous.

But if you have two feet on one side … well … you have chosen a life of fairytales … or a life in the abyss.

All that said.

Yes.

There are times you draw a line and make a choice to shift both feet solidly onto one side. I would suggest this is a situational decision and not a “living Life” type decision.

That is right and that is wrong.

That is good and that is bad.

That is normal and that is not normal.

Those are most likely the moments in which Life says “now, in this time and place, here is the line … on which side to you choose to stand?”

I would suggest sometimes we fuck this up by confusing a ‘Life one foot here & one foot there’ decision and a contextual situational decision. What I mean is that in that time and place you may try and keep your fairy tale foot in place and your abyss foot in place … and mistakenly take on a different type of decision demanding a different type of line.

That would be a bad decision.

In that time. in that place. In that moment.

You shift your feet.

Sigh.

I never suggested lines were easy. Just that Life demands we draw a lot of lines. I would suggest that if you do not draw some lines you will find yourself lost in anger coiled within, or maybe constantly living a less than fairy tale life dreaming it all away, or stuck in some dark abyss seeing no way out.

Yeah … lines come in pretty handy at times. Pretty handy in managing Life. I can tell you <for sure> that lines can be pretty handy at helping you decide when something should end … and something should start.

‘To prosper soundly in business, you must satisfy not only your customers, but you must lay yourself out to satisfy also the men who make your product and the men who sell it.’

——

Harry Bassett

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“We are all manufacturers – making good, making trouble or making excuses. “

——

HV Adolt

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So.

I have probably had to think about, and talk about, the business concept of “customer centric” more in the past month or so than I have had to do in the past decade or so.

I have seen so many customer-centric presentations over the years that made my head hurt I am surprised my head hasn’t exploded yet.

Don’t ask me why but the oft-horridly interpreted and often mis-implemented concept is making a comeback.

Customer centric, simplistically, is the concept of creating a positive customer experience at every point of the pre sale, sale and post-sale.

It’s a word we’ve been using for decades <dates back to direct marketing in the 1960s & largely credited to a marketing guy named Lester Wunderman> and most of us in business don’t really think too much about it because we think it is kind of an obvious ‘given’ in business.

The problem is that customer-centric has been mangled to a point where we actually have to figure out some wacky ways to define it <most people use it in the sense of putting the customer at the center of everything that is done>.

Frankly, I’ve never met a business person who said their company wasn’t customer-centric.

I imagine the topic keeps coming up because research with customers keeps telling these business people convinced they are customer centric that … well … they actually are not.

The most famous of the debunkers is Bain and Company who shared this enlightened graph back in 2005:

It showcases the delivery gap between how customers perceive customer service and/or customer experience and how executives perceive the performance of their organization in that context.

Suffice it to say … that gap, which can be scarily extreme, debunks the myth of customer centric in practice when a company simply looks in a mirror and says “wow I’m good looking.”

Here is where contrarian Bruce steps into this game.

Most business people sincerely want to make customers strategically important to how they go about their business, but they also know what they see from most “customer centric experts’ is bullshit.

Therefore, they do the best they can and know that … well … theory is difficult to pragmatically, effectively, implement.

Here is where I differ from most of the customer centric experts:

The most important letter in customer centric is “I.”

“I” as in “what I am good at” and “what I can actually do really frickin’ well” and as in “what is my Inner truth.”

Oops.

None of that is “what does my customer want.”

Look.

I never suggest ignoring the customer but I do suggest that before you ever sit down and talk about any customer centric things philosophically, and practically, you better be sure you know what you are good at, what you can actually do and what are the ‘truths’ <good & bad> of your own organization.

Most experts talk about “customer satisfaction” and I talk about thinking of the customer as someone with ongoing annoyance interspersed with occasional boredom and indifference.

Whew.

Now that sounds tough for any business person out there <and slightly depressing>.

But I tend to believe rather than try and build some rosy view most businesses should face … well … reality.

The reality is that once you establish customers SHOULD have high(er) expectations they are bound to go largely unmet.

Sorry.

That’s truth.

That is an unfortunate truth because the majority of customer centric practices choose to try and establish their own “best” to be judged by and … uh oh … they rarely actually keep up with the actual best of the best <because that “isn’t our positioning or what we are about” or because “oh, that is not our industry” or they simply just cannot match the best of the best>.

Setting high expectations means meeting the expectations of “customers” who will define everything by … well … EVERYTHING they encounter & experience.

A B2B customer will start thinking “experience” based on how the Starbucks barista treats them or how the Apple online assistance rep treats them.

Yup.

If you follow much of the customer centric bullshit being fed you, you will end up facing well informed customers who will be in a perpetual state of indifference and/or irritation.

Indifference will hit those customer centric practices that customers know are underperforming, and that they can avoid due to sufficient availability of the best of the best. If you’re working for one of those underperforming customer centric practices, the scary thing is not just selling less (or nothing). It’s that indifferent customers will stop being forgiving; they will stop being cooperative and giving you feedback on how to be more like other, better performing competitors. They’ll just leave and never return, without telling you why.

Perpetual irritation is just as bad: this will occur when customers are forced to buy from an underperforming customer centric practice, due to limited or no availability of what they already know is the best of the best.

In this light, pay special attention to fake loyalty and postponed purchases:

Fake loyalty: customers will continue to purchase from underperforming customer centric practices if the ‘real thing’ isn’t available. To the underperforming customer centric practices, all may seem quiet on the western front, until the best of the best suddenly does become available. Good examples of fake loyalty can be found in the airline industry: millions of frequent flyers around the world know that Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines and Emirates offer a superior experience, but since these airlines don’t fly on all routes, customers have no choice but to fly with subpar airlines now or then, or all of the time. Count on them to vote with their wallets every time new routes are added by these ‘best of the best’ carriers, even if they’ve never flown with them before.

Postponing purchases: some ‘best of the best’ customer centric practices like Apple actually manage to indirectly convince customers to postpone certain purchases. Many customers would rather wait for the iPhone or MacBook Air to become available, than to buy a new phone or laptop.

So … what should someone do?

The power of “I.”

….. Bruce’s consumer version of Inner Truth ………

Let me start with a Brucism — I have not found a lot of successful businesses that suck at everything.

In other words … if you have had some success, particularly if you have had some sustained success, it is likely you have <a> some significant expertise in something and <b> pleased some customers in some ways.

I am relentless on having businesses find their Inner Truth. It is often a difficult discussion <because it means admitting you are not good at everything> but by finding, isolating an embracing your business Inner Truth it permits the business to find its value core.

Once you find your value core you are able to insure you foster the attitudes & behaviors that feed into that value equation.

In addition, it insures the business leverages off of that foundation for any new ideas or “asks” of the organization itself with regard to new behaviors and decisions.

I have said this before and I assume I will say it a gazillion times again … “stop wishing you were something else and start loving who you are.”

That’s sounds like some bullshit Life coaching advice but the truth is more businesses, especially the ones who start discussing customer centric philosophy, should embrace this advice.

To be fair <before I begin my constructive enlightening rant> … the foundational aim for any customer centric practices has been and remains the same as always … to express singularities which consistently distinguish the offering of products and services.

And within these singularities … or distinctness … people will seek values, leadership, assurance, clarity … and personality <or character>. Maybe better said … some promise.

Growing a customer centric practices means it has to fulfill a clear promise. Promises are simple and complex. But suffice it to say, in this case, you make a promise and deliver upon it. Simple as that.

Here are some basic steps simplify <or at least clarify> some things that make up the foundation blocks for growing the customer centric practices based on “the power of I”:

company assessment

The first step in growing a customer centric practices is to assess the customer centric practices ‘parent’ <the organization itself>. There are several methods for obtaining this information from the end-users but suffice it to say that if you don’t know your company <culture, belief system, aspirations> you will never rear your customer centric practices properly. Never has the quote “be true to thineself’ ever rung more true.

research

Whether you think you need it or not … do some ongoing research.

Research will not only provide qualitative information from key stakeholders, including internal and external customers and influencers, but also flesh out the raw concept that resides in the vision.

The number of interviews will vary according to the typical number of end-users that would have an opinion about your company’s image as well as those ‘inside’ who have an image of what you do well.

The total number of potential end-users may be very small in b2b compared to a consumer product such as toothpaste but suffice it to say you seek to find the gaps & non-gaps of expertise between the organization and end users.

You are seeking some consistent feedback … so you hear the same feedback over and over.

The information collected from the survey is the foundation on which your customer centric practices platform will be established. You may find that once all the results are summarized, the information is very much in-sync with your organization’s internal perception of itself.

<note: don’t fool yourself into believing the exercise was a waste of time or a worthwhile effort in this situation … it is not only a sanity check but it also alleviates a lot of second guessing at a later date and plays a significant role in aligning everyone on what matters>.

Anyway.

In my experience … 90% of most customer centric discussions that businesses are faced with will begin with the customer.

That is the wrong place to begin.

Everything begins, and ends, with who you are and what your expertise is and what you can actually deliver. Beyond that … well … customer centric is worthless if you don’t get that right and accept, and embrace, that.

Which leads me to the next thing most customer centric experts never tell you <and I am fairly sure most of them don’t think about>.

Accepting Unevenness.

Unevenness?

What do I mean?

Well.

It seems like almost every customer centric discussion seems to incorporate some circle, or some 360degree view, in which you envelop a customer with all the love <functional and emotional> they need to create the utmost satisfaction and undying loyalty.

Unfortunately that is just theoretical bullshit because reality is just not that neat.

Just as there is no such thing as a well-rounded person there is no well-rounded business in the reality of … well … the real business world.

Most customer centric bullshit suggests you need to not only protect yourself on all fronts but also ‘project yourself’ on all fronts.

This is crazy.

Businesses don’t build themselves that way. Shit. People don’t build themselves that way. You are good at some things and not a good on others.

That said … the underlying absurdity in most customer centric modeling is in its suggestion of ‘evenness.’

The traditional customer centric circle diagram concept suggests you push everyone out toward what they don’t know <boundary of ignorance>.

However.

Enlightenment, and gaining knowledge to overcome ignorance, is just not that neat.

In fact … it is frustratingly un-neat.

Frustrating in that every time you learn something … ignorance still remains … outside your existing knowledge base. And this translates into a state of being perpetually dissatisfied <or the glass is never completely full with knowledge> which obviously can be either encouraging, or discouraging, with a person’s attitude to continue learning.

Businesses consistently attempt to fulfill their role in this ‘customer centric process’ by focusing attention on the inside of the circle and keeping everyone carefully inside the boundaries. They do this under the guise of “company consistency.”

I imagine the good news is that this helps keep employees from falling off the edge into irrelevant material & learning <and it insures all employees gain knowledge in a logical order> but it also, negatively, impedes upon <a> the way most individuals gain knowledge (which is they follow what interests them) & <b> any knowledge or learning that could be attained outside the sphere of consistency.

But here is the really bad news.

Organizations are not neat round circles of knowledge. Why? Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, organizations are made up of people, not concepts or robots.

The reality of any organization is one of a profile of an expert <or passion on a topic> in some particular domain, and not others, and therefore you will never end up with a perfect circle but rather an ellipse or some wacky trapezoid <or something>, in other words, the circle of knowledge & expertise of any business has inconsistent edges/boundaries.

What this means is that organizations are more like uneven spikey boundaries of expertise & knowledge organisms.

Thinking about your organization with regard to attempting to implement some customer centric concepts will help a business better understand their learning flaws, and learning challenges, but maybe more importantly … better understand their areas of expertise.

I say all that because you invariably need to grow your customer centric practices … well … unevenly.

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“In short, not only are things not what they seem, they are not even what they are called!”

The more successful path to being the best you can be is … well … be the best you can be on the things you know you can actually be the best you can be day after day after day.

This builds value and believability.

Unfortunately most customer-centric gurus start this discussion in the wrong place.

They almost always begin by identifying “weaknesses” or “where we need to improve/be better”. In other words … they begin with what is not an inherent expertise, or something the employees apparently don’t particularly want to do, and make a decision to invest energy attempting to make the organization … well … something they are not naturally.

Unfortunately most customer-centric gurus start this discussion in the wrong place.

Customer centric discussions far too often focuses solely on those pesky demanding customers <remember indifference, irritation and unrealistic expectations>. In other words. You are likely to be chasing perpetually dissatisfied, or indifferent until they are dissatisfied, people.

That is crazy. Absurd.

The better way to be the best customer centric organization is actually to identify what the company does best, that increases customer satisfaction, and say “how can we make our best better” <so we can ‘own’ that expertise>.

Some people may read this as “settling.” Or if they want to be harsher suggest that I am stating something ‘lesser than’ a best customer service focused organization.

I would tell these ‘some people’ I am a pragmatist and have a tendency to focus on the truths of reality.

What do I mean?

Let’s face it.

In the past a company <or their customer centric practices> could get away with not performing at its peak on some things. Or maybe taking a day off performance wise.

You could because customers didn’t experience full transparency of the best, the cheapest, the first, the most original or the most relevant.

Well.

That’s all over.

And things are bound to get even more radically transparent. I wrote about this years ago and called it “the expectation economy.” http://brucemctague.com/expectations-as-an-economy Reality dictates you focus on the few things you can master and be an expertise on, offer expectations on those, don’t overpromise on others <even if competitors do> and be ‘customer centric’ by being authentically honest where you are consistently okay and authentically set expectations where you can deliver upon a ‘customer centric promise’ day in and day out.

Reality dictate your customer centric philosophy comes to life in an uneven pattern which actually can stand under the scrutiny of spotlight criticism.

In the end.

Let me go back to the most important letter in customer centric is “I.”

In this case it is “ideas.”

Ideas are the new currency in business, any business, including the service business. If you have a business focused solely on “making the customer happy” you are on a fool’s errand. In today’s interconnected world expectations <and what makes a customer happy> are driven not by your competition nor any realistically relevant industry benchmark … but rather by whatever that customer has uncovered anywhere in the world to establish a benchmark.

If you and your business try to ‘follow the customer expectation’ one-by-one … well … one will quickly become a ‘none’ <as in out of business>.

Regardless.

Suffice it to say if you are not in the business of generating new ideas to refresh your ‘customer centricity’ you are not competing in the same world as the rest of the businesses out there.

I end today’s thought on customer centric with that last one sentence paragraph because inherent in almost any customer centric discussion is NOT any discussion on ideas but rather “satisfaction.”

Satisfaction, at its core as a concept, is about “reaction.” In other words, if I am seeking to increase customer satisfaction I therefore seek ways to understand how I can do it <from them> and … well … do it.

Ideas are proactive.

And maybe that is the most important word, and thought, in this entire diatribe – proactive. 90% of the customer centric presentations I have ever seen have dripped with ‘reactiveness’ … reacting to what customers want in order to make them happy & satisfied <assuming your ultimate value is driven somehow by effective reactiveness>.

This makes my head explode.

Reactive value is the lowest value you can achieve.

Conversely.

Proactive value offers you the highest value you can achieve.

I will not argue that an effective customer centric organization has to have some good reactive mechanisms in place to show responsiveness to needs but I will argue with any customer centric expert who stops there. True customer centric business is beating the customer to the spot – with ideas, solutions and service.

That is a proactive model. And that is what maximizes value to a customer, breeds real loyalty and … well … insures the business itself constantly pushes out on its own boundaries of ignorance by increasing its circle off knowledge.

Anyway.

What I do know … or am 90% sure … is that you will not hear or read any of this from the traditional customer centric ‘experts.’ That either makes me a moron or … well … a contrarian.

“We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”

—–

Carson Mccullers

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Well.

The number one challenge to progress & “living in the present” is old things.

Ok.

Not old things, per se, but how the idea of old things resides in our heads, hearts & minds.

For some reason old things have this incredible knack to not only gain value over time but also increase our hunger for them.

Sure.

Not all things.

Some old things suck, we know they suck and are glad to leave them in some scrap heap in the rear view mirror.

But the old things that didn’t suck?

Whew.

Memories and old things have an incredible magical way of shedding the bad and accumulating good.

Okay.

Maybe they don’t accumulate good but rather ‘basic familiarity’ or ‘low level contentment’ inevitably take on a disproportionately positive value.

They become slightly twisted totems that people are clearly drawn to and become touchstones of ‘when things were better.’

Shit.

“when things were better.”

Who wouldn’t have a hunger for that?

The problem is that I don’t think what most people realize, or maybe recognize, is that it is ideas and thinking which create the light that eliminates the darkness of the fear of the unknown, that new inevitably outshines old … and that nostalgia is best found, mostly, when you find new familiar things and new habits to replace them.

I, personally, have never really seen the allure of most old things. I love old buildings and love museums but, to me, they are simply way stations to new ideas, new thinking and new behavior.

To me the old seems muted and I desire to live loud & bold.

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“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”

–

Émile Zola

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All that said.

I understand the fact old things have a strange hunger to many people.

In fact.

I would argue that ‘old things’ is an equal opportunity employer.

What I mean by that is we far too often conflate the desire for old things, or holding on to what was old, with generations.

Old people hunger for old things and younger people hunger for new things.

This is simplistically misguided thinking.

When we do this we miss the bigger challenge old things place in front of us. Old things have an insatiable hunger for the human desire for familiarity and the desire for security that can be found within each and every one of us. That insatiable hunger sits in our stomachs and minds in a variety of ways and degrees depending on the individual … regardless of their age.

That hunger resides in older people AND younger people.

Ignoring that means ignoring some basic realities which can be quite costly as you make observations, decision and choices.

This is particularly true in business.

Look.

All of us, everyone, even the riskiest of risk takers like having some safety net.

Not all safety nets are created equal or look similar … but 99.9% of us seek some version of a safety net.

Old things tend to offer us that safety net.

I say that so when we start ridiculing someone, old or young, for appearing to hunger a little too much for old things that maybe we … well … stop ridiculing and start thinking about it a little.

Maybe all someone is doing is seeking their version of a safety net.

Maybe they are seeking something a little familiar and maybe something that offers a little mental security in a world which, frankly, seems to consistently try and demolish all that is familiar & secure.

As I noted when I wrote about ‘optimal newness’ we all desire, and like, some balance. We all find comfort in familiarity and some versions of nostalgia and find excitement in something new.

Old things have a strange hunger for the desire for some familiarity & some ‘secured clarity’ that resides in every single person.

As a studier of behaviors and attitudes I pay attention to this.

As a business guy I pay attention to this.

Old things have earned the right to be totems of times better and familiar.

We should allow them their hunger.

And, yet, as with almost everything in Life … we need to insure people, individuals, manage their diet in order to live healthy lives and have healthy professional careers.

As I just told a business leader last week who was expressing frustration with regard to how some employees were ‘holding on to old things with ragged claws’ … people aren’t nostalgic for old memories they are more nostalgic for familiarity & security.

If you can offer them the same with new things, old things lose their luster.

“In general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life energy. Humans connect with humans.

Hiding one’s humanity and trying to project an image of perfection makes a person vague, slippery, lifeless, and uninteresting.”

—

Robert Glover

==================

“Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

—–

Saul D. Alinsky

===================

So.

I was fishing around for some new ways to talk about leading a business <I get bored with using the same words and thoughts over and over again> and I came across the Saul Alinsky quote … the second one I used upfront.

It resonated with me because I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in some company “forward thinking strategy” meeting discussing how we would expand the business … stretching not only beyond the existing functional strength of the business but also stepping beyond the existing expertise of the employees.

This is usually cloaked in the infamous “oh, if we can do this, we can certainly do this” statement … or the even more dangerous “we have always figured it out” mantra.

To be clear … progress is always tricky. And leading progress almost even trickier.

But, if you want it to be less trickier, ‘feeling secure’ is almost always a great step toward increasing the odds of success.

Now.

You can secure the … well … security … in a number of ways – some reality based and some emotionally charged ways.

And that is where Saul Alinsky comes back into the leadership discussion. He wrote a book calledRules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals in 1971. He wrote it as a guide to community organization <uniting “Have-Nots”, in order for them to gain social, political, legal, and economic power>.

What I loved about the Rules, beyond the rules themselves, was that Alinsky believed, when organized and directed well, the community can determine & achieve its purpose & goal. That thought, to me, is exactly the attitude a leader attempts to create <supporting a vision offered by the leader> within an organization.

What I loved about the Rules is the rules themselves are actually signposts for how to have a company compete in the marketplace.

That said.

Let me share the rules and some brief thoughts with the rules. The Rules:

—

“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.

Far too often … despite the fact 99% of businesses unequivocally state “our difference is our people” … a business forgets to actually build their power off of flesh & blood.

Money comes and goes.

Machines and infrastructure does what it does.

But people, flesh & blood, is the true power. It pays, as a leader, to never forget that.

“Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

Every business I have been involved with has had an expertise. Uhm. The difficulty is that far too many leaders & managers wish the organization had a different expertise or they aspire to some other expertise.

I, personally, love the thought of isolating a company expertise, consolidating the inside expertise and using it like a battering ram in terms of progress.

People love doing things well and being appreciated for the expertise they have <and not diminished by suggesting they should have another expertise>.

“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

When I saw this one I almost chuckled. It is so good, so solidly strategically right … and I would guess 95% of businesses never think this way. Oh. They may be happy identifying a “this is what we are better at than they are” and competing with that in their hip pocket … but I struggle to think of any business I have ever been involved with who has sat down and said “let’s go outside their expertise <and consciously accepting they have an expertise.”

Crushing a competitor is always fun but ignoring an opportunity to outflank them is stupid.

“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.

Ok.

Here is why I loved this one.

I loved it because bullshit & hollow rhetoric and promises/claims are strewn throughout the business world. I can guarantee, with 95% certainty, I could pick up any business’s vision & strategy & ‘rules of the road’ binder and find a significant amount of hollow shit. What would happen if I consciously attacked one of my competitor’s hollow shit? Make them live up to their own book of rules?

I am chuckling.

You would crush them.

You would crush them in two ways:

External perceptions: everyone knows almost all businesses make hollow promises but get aggravated when it becomes too obvious that the promise really is hollow

Internal perceptions: almost every employee simply accepts that some of the company rhetoric is bullshit but they accept it because it doesn’t really affect them. But if the hollow rhetoric becomes obvious AND a pain in the ass … discontent grows. Bitching at the water cooler increases.

This is an awesome leadership thought.

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

I admit. Ridiculing your competition is fraught with peril. However … having some swagger and vocalizing your swagger is … well … infuriating to some competition. It puts pressure on them.

Ridiculing, specifically, what a competitor believes is their most potent weapon will … well … infuriate them.

Pick your path wisely … but there is absolutely nothing wrong with swagger, infuriating your competition and putting some pressure on them.

“A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.

Far too often some strategic guru envisions some tactic that will be smashingly successful and then attempt to imbue some excitement within the people who will actually do it. I think the best strategic thinkers find tactics that people enjoy AND can be smashingly successful. Unfortunately this is harder than you would think. But nothing really good is easy.

“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.

Amen.

A lesson we forget every day <and should not>.

“Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.

Tactical adaptation is possibly one of the most underrated strategic decisions a business can make. While we talk a good game on this in today’s ‘digital world’ the truth is that most of us chase numbers more than we think about outflanking and expertise advantages. That is kind of the bane of the ‘big data’ world.

Numbers are good in judging things but, in the end, people & behavior are not numbers and no matter how good a tactic may appear in a number it can always be replaced.

“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.

I am not an empty threat guy, however, ‘power is what the competition thinks you have.’ My point here is not to make shit up and offer empty threats but rather the more you can make a competitor think, and worry, about the wrongs things the better off you are.

Stoke their imagination.

Make them have high falutin’ meetings pondering “what if” scenarios.

I wouldn’t do this to replace any of the other rules … but in combination?

Whew. This is good stuff.

“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.

Sometimes in today’s business world we treat tactics like spaghetti we throw against the wall and hope something sticks. I am not suggesting a business should invest gobs of energy developing operations to maintain constant pressure in INDIVIDUAL tactics but I am suggesting that strategic tactics tend to coalesce and operations can be developed to support them.

I imagine the real point here is hollow tactics may generate some numbers for you but they don’t really make any dent into the competition <which, inevitably, is the key to leading an industry>.

“If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.

I love this thought because, let’s be honest, we have become a mamby pamby business world. What I mean by that is at the first glimpse of any significant negativity we tend to retreat or retrench. Pushing through a negative is not standard operating procedure in a business today.

Let me be clear on this one.

If you do Rule #5 well, you will infuriate your competition. An infuriated competitor reacts <usually with some desire to inflict some negative pain> — they will violently react. If you stay the course, maintain your expertise, well … you can push through and own a positive.

More businesses need to remember this.

“The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.

I call this “consolidating a win.”

I cannot tell you how many times <but far too many> I have seen a business “lose after winning.” It is maddening, depressing & demoralizing … and completely avoidable.

Far too many businesses chase the success assuming they will be able to take a breath and take advantage of the success in a relatively timely fashion.

This is where ideas die.

In the take-a-breath moment.

This happens for a bunch of well-intended reasons … the most likely one is everyone invests their energy on the attack and a successful attack rather than diverting any energy & time to “what do we do when we are successful” other than maybe a framework of ‘what will happen.’

Unfortunately … frameworks do not consolidate.

The solution to this is so obvious I scratch my head as to why more businesses do not do it. Businesses always have two basic levels … the outside structure and the inside structure. The outside is the face of the organization and most typically is the one that pushes through and creates the ‘wins.’ The inside operations gets shit done … I have always had an ‘inside operations team’ well briefed and ready to go and insert them into the breach as soon as the win has occurred and have the ‘fresh team’ consolidate.

I could write an entire ‘consolidation strategy’ piece but suffice it to say your business gains value in a number of dimensions by doing it this way.

The larger point with this Rule is ‘don’t lose a win by not having a plan for when you win.’

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

Well. Let me share the thought that first hit me on this … “a brand is a promise delivered in the store everyday” <this was The Limited’s phrase>. The point is that a business doesn’t exist if it doesn’t deliver upon what it promises.

That said … this is an important rule. As in a REALLY important rule that I bet 99% of companies do not even think about let alone adhere to. Most businesses target another competitor’s users & customers and go about trying to steal them <persuade them to switch>.

Well.

What about instead we attacked the company, the support network … the “promise” as it were … and make the people who actually deliver the promise start doubting, or start feeling less than secure, or just “less good about their brand & promise”?

If we did this, we create a gap, isolate as it were, between what the customer thought they wanted and what they perceive they are getting or would get.

I love this rule.

I admit I had never thought about t this way before … but from here on out it is part of my leadership toolkit.

———

Okay.

Those are some good rules for business.

But you know what?

It all comes back to the first Rule and my first quote.

Flesh & blood is the real power in any business and … people are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life energy. Humans connect with humans.

Honestly … I don’t think most leaders ignore the fact the people in their organizations are important but I think we don’t elevate them to ‘flesh & blood is the power’ status.

And that is where the Rules come in.

Inherent to each rule, and the success therein, resides with … well … the flesh & blood. That is a pragmatic reminder for leading a business.

“Your greatest need is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters your mind.

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.

This is a power you can cultivate.

If you want to control things in your life, work on controlling your mind. In most cases, that’s the only thing you should be trying to control.”

–

Marc Hack

=================

So.

Controlling things <shit>, in general, in Life, in business and … well … in everywhere … is possibly the least possible objective of all.

Yet.

In some form or fashion we attempt again and again to gain & maintain some control over all the shit we are faced with day in & day out. Pragmatically this is our attempt to offer some sanity to what can seem like a fairly insanely chaotic life.

All that said.

Control, for the most part, is an illusion.

It is an attractive illusion but an illusion nonetheless.

But.

As the world swirls around you like a hurricane I would suggest the one thing you can control is your mind and what you think. It ain’t easy but it is doable.

Control when you think.

Not everything takes a shitload of thinking. This is my way of suggesting overthinking is a bad thing. Uhm. So is underthinking. Controlling when you think is about “thinking just enough” – not over or under – when faced with something. Some would call this ‘maximizing efficient thinking.’ I would simply call it learning how to not overthink or underthink something.

This comes naturally to an incredibly small % of people … let’s make up a number … less than 5% of people. Haggle with that number of you would like but I offer it to make the point that the majority of people who say “I am a good thinker” <with regard to over & underthinking> are probably not.

You have to learn how to do this. My guess is even if you are a great learner no one truly becomes an expert at this.

Control how you think.

Our minds are often like people viewing an all-you-can-eat buffet table … we will inevitably gravitate to either the desserts or the prime rib. We don’t focus on the most healthy and less glamorous stuff on the table.

This means you have to control not only your thoughts but also how you think.

You have to sift through what appears attractive versus what may actually be more healthy <the ‘non-rubbish’ as it were> in order to most effectively meet the needs of the thought moment.

By the way … please note I purposefully chose effective and not efficient. When you think is about efficiency and how you think is about effectiveness.

This is a focus aspect of thinking. Shiny objects are shiny objects and tasty indulgent desserts are tasty indulgent desserts.

You have to learn to do this. Some people are actually very good at this. They have a knack for viewing everything all at once and have an ability to discern the less important from the most important without being distracted by shiny and tasty things. please note “some.” Not a lot. Not many. Some. You can learn to be better at this but unless you have the innate instincts you will just be good at it and not great at it.

Control how you select your thoughts.

Ah.

Once you have focused … you have to select some thoughts to craft your decision, choice & conclusion. This point kind of circles back to underthinking & overthinking. If you suck at controlling how you select thoughts, you will invariably end up mired in overthinking shit <because you chose the wrong things and got bogged down in a less-than-conclusive spot> or underthinking shit <because you found an attractive thought which seemingly, in some linear way, suggested “that’s it!”>.

We all have a rolodex of thoughts in our minds that we have accumulated over time through whatever experiences we have had. Inevitably the mind, in its wily way, flips through it for you and shoves a thought or two to the forefront – immediately. Some people call this ‘instincts.’

I call it dangerous.

The subconscious can be wrong as often as it is right.

Unfortunately you have to force thinking at this stage. Dive a little deeper than your initial “oh, that’s it.” This is absolutely learnable.

Unfortunately today’s world doesn’t exactly encourage us to force thinking and learn to do this. We encourage instincts & speed above all.

That is unfortunate.

That is dangerous.

That is unlearnable <you can unlearn this> … and controlling how you select your thoughts IS learnable.

Lastly.

Disconnecting.

It would seem fairly obvious that if you want to increase control you would decrease distractions.

And, in general, that is a fairly safe formula.

But, I admit, I am not a disconnecting <from twitter, facebook, social media, internet … any escapism > fan.

I am not because, if you buy into what I shared above, that is simply avoiding some possibly valuable inputs into your thinking for the sake of … well … thinking.

It seems to me that controlling my own mind has less to do with managing external stimuli and more to do with HOW I manage incoming external stimuli.

Just to finish this whole thought … I do believe we spend far too much time talking about distractions and how smartphones are decreasing attention spans and … well … how the external world is killing true thinking. The only thing killing true thinking is us … people … the individual and how the individual decides, or doesn’t decide, how to think.

I imagine I am talking about personal responsibility in some form or fashion. In a world in which we do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time blaming a whole bunch of shit on someone other than ourselves it really does seem like we should spend more time talking about how we can assume more responsibility for how we think, what we think and learning to think.

“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”

—————

Abraham Lincoln

=====================

“Most of us don’t mind doing what we ought to do when it doesn’t interfere with what we want to do, but it takes discipline and maturity to do what we ought to do whether we want to or not.“

———–

Joseph B. Wirthlin

====================

Ok.

Just to finish off my thoughts <and frustrations > with regard to Trump’s lack of leadership and the NFL <and pettiness with Steph Curry “dis-invite” of someone who wasn’t going anyway> I wanted to point out just one more incredibly disturbing behavior he continues to exhibit – picking winners & losers with individual businesses.

It seems like he has forgotten he is no longer a faux business person, when he could tweet out absurd faux business statements about other real businesses and business people, and that he is now a faux president where he is not supposed to tell businesses how to be run, what an industry should or should not do and call out individual people like he is calling out to the guy who always finds a way to lose to him on the golf course whenever he walks through Mar a Lago’s front door.

Presidents don’t pick business winners and losers.

Presidents don’t tell people how to conduct their business.

Governments establish laws, rules & regulations within which individual businesses, industries and people work within. HOW they work within those guidelines is up to them.

In fact.

Even if a president has some business experience it doesn’t matter how they ran their business, how they believe a business should be run or how they believe specific demands upon organizational behavior should be dictated … it does not matter what he or she thinks.

Businesses are enterprises permitted to run their business independent of government ‘input.’ It is the right of any business to conduct themselves, legally, the way they choose.

I say that because lost in the racial and faux patriotism aspects of the Trump versus NFL <black athletes> mosh pit is the basic fact he interfered in the way an entire business conducts their business.

“I think NFL team owners should fire the son of a bitches.”

First.

No business owner calls the employees sonofabitches.

If they do they get fired.

Second.

I have run businesses. No one tells me who I can, or cannot, fire.

No one.

Third.

I have run businesses. No one tells me how my employees should conduct themselves and what they can, or cannot do,

No one.

Fourth.

“You should boycott the games <do not attend or watch>.”

Uhm.

So … the president suggested Americans should not support American business.

That’s the bottom line.

Gussy that up any way you would like but … that’s it.

Do not spend you money on American business.

At some point I am sure some Trump administration spokesperson can turn themselves into a pretzel telling me how wrong I am to think and say that … but … uhm … the American president told American people that because American businesses were not doing what he believes is the American way of conducting business that American people should no longer support specific American businesses.

What an asshole.

What a fucked up version of an American First business ideology.

I imagine my larger point is that since Trump was elected he has called out specific companies and industries … and even specific people … all under the guise of “here is what I believe is good or bad.”

<i imagine any Republican/conservative reading this just gagged a little>

By the way … this forces those businesses, industries and individuals to have to spend unplanned money attempting to respond to the highest office in the country.

He is the president. Presidents don’t pick business winners and losers.

Whether you like, or dislike, what the president has said about the NFL it is coming with a cost.

Saturday morning coaches, owners and players thought the game plan was the most important thing. By late Saturday morning PR teams, business owners conference calls, team captains, and players were all geared up trying to figure out what to do and how to respond.

Business as usual was interrupted.

We may think football is game … but it is a business to these people and it is a job.

Trump interfered with people’s business, careers and livelihoods.

In business words have repercussions.

…….. Trump’s affect on business by interfering ……….

But Trump doesn’t think beyond the moment and the soundbite and the audience.

He is one of those assholes he just lets others clean up the mess he leaves behind and justifies all his shit by saying shit like “I am just saying what everyone is thinking” … not realizing that most business entities kind of build a system to accommodate ‘the shit’ so when someone comes along and topples the system … well … you have to invest energy, time and money rebuilding a new system to accommodate new shit.

There are dozens of real stupid leadership things about trump that drive me nuts. But this one is actually different. This is a lack of understanding of the roles & responsibilities of being a president.

You don’t pick winners and losers.

You don’t tell someone how to run their business.

You don’t tell someone who to fire and who to not fire.

Basically.

This weekend should remind Donald J Trump that he shouldn’t interfere with anything in the Constitution <free speech> and shouldn’t interfere in American business.

I would be furious if I were an NFL owner or head coach.

Furious.

I would be nervous if I were a business CEO or business leader.

Very nervous.

Trump has no idea how to be a president nor how to conduct himself as a president … businesses will suffer this fool week after week.

In my personal writing I can honestly say I have never posted something unedited.

Even the easiest things I have written get tightened up, edited and revised as I reread. Sometimes not much … but everything gets tweaked – some a little … some a lot.

Even then … typos remain.

Now.

In my professional life I use outlines, drafts and finals.

I do this because my mind is always at work.

I hear things, read things & see things and all the while my mind is juggling all of this stimulus rethinking, rewriting and recreating.

By the way … this acknowledges that I could, on occasion, run into some aspects of unintended plagiarism.

But because I am an ‘editor of things’ this means I am comfortable rearranging things. In fact … I never get tired of rearranging let alone thinking. I would do it 24/7 if I didn’t have to sleep.

However.

Doing all of this without any purpose or objective is simply mental masturbation.

That’s why the three draft rule is a good one.

The first draft is all about you, what you think and how you want to say things.

The second draft smooths out the edges and insures the personal “you” is getting in the way of clear communication and truth.

The third draft insures whatever YOU want to say connects with what THEY need to hear, want to hear and should hear.

It is a mistake to reverse this order. Reversing the order strips the presenter of any passion and creativity … it becomes more of an “order taker” type presentation or document.

Anyway.

The other thing people say about drafts is that each one eliminates so that the last one is the ‘brevity’ version.

I don’t agree <in general>.

The three draft method is actually more like an hour glass.

The first draft is almost always too long and … well … too.

The second draft tends to peel shit off of what you have.

The third draft more often puts some meat back on the bones tied to the reader/audience.

A lot of people, simplistically, balk at this. They don’t see the meat as useful and abhor adding things at this stage.

Once again, I disagree.

I disagree because I typically think of Claude Hopkins, a man who pioneered the concept of advertising as we know it, in 1923 <“Scientific Advertising” is a worthwhile read with worthwhile advice applicable even in today’s world>.

If Hopkins was known for one thing it would be “persuasion.” Everything centered on that. Not brevity or pictures versus words or any of that bullshit we waste time pontificating over these days … just persuasion and doing whatever is necessary to persuade.

For example.

With a prospect standing before a salesperson, would you confine him to any certain number of words? That would be an unthinkable handicap.

Successful writing almost always depends on maintaining perspective – keep in mind no one really reads what you write for amusement <but that doesn’t mean you cannot amuse on occasion>.

Consider them as prospects standing before you, seeking for information.

Give them enough to get action.

Some advocate large type and big headlines. Yet no one likes salespeople who talk only in loud voices.

We should measure everything we do by salespeople standards not by amusement standards. Ads are not written to entertain. When they do, those entertainment seekers are little likely to be the people whom you want. That is one of the greatest advertising faults. Ad writers abandon their parts. You can never forget you are salespeople, not a performer.

Seek a sale, not applause.

Regardless.

All presentations really can get boiled down into 3 important aspects:

Figure out what you want to sell <persuade people to think or do>

Figure out what you want to say

Figure out how you want to say it

All the other mumbo jumbo on ‘tricks to effective presenting’ is irrelevant if you don’t figure out these two things. In fact, I would argue you could throw away all the presentation books if you figure these two things out.

What you want to say sounds simple but it is not. Because inevitably you get caught up in ALL the things you want to say, prioritizing what you want to say and getting what you want to say down on paper <or whatever format you elect to organize the presentation>.

All I can say for sure is that you need to put it in a draft, a document or a script. Without it you cannot edit. And without editing <unless you are Bill Clinton> you are screwed.

Next.

Figuring out how you want to say it.

Okay. Let me tell you a truth, a fact, a ‘something no one really wants to hear.’

99% of the time what you just figured out to say will sound like crap if you just read it as a presentation.

Maybe 99.9% of the time. Writing & speaking are two different skills. They may be derivatives of each other but one typically does not translate directly to the other.

There will always be presenters who are obviously reading their presentation script off a teleprompter <which is a skill in itself by the way> and it sounds obviously stilted and in some cases like it was the first time they had heard these words out loud.

And the issue wasn’t because they were reading a script <another complaint young people throw around when arguing they want to be ‘natural’ when presenting>. It was the script they were reading. They wrote something that sounded good in their head when they read it … but sounded stupid when actually saying it. By the way … that is why rehearsing is important.

All the things I am going to type drive me crazy, but maybe this one the most.

These are the ‘rules’ like … you cannot stand still, or you have to move, or you can’t have your hands in your pockets, or … well … just go ahead and pick up a ‘how to’ presentation book … they will list all the ‘don’t rules’.

Nuts.

I just say ‘nuts’ to that.

I have stood with hands in my pockets just stepping up to the microphone and delivered. No one cared I wasn’t using my hands.

Why?

Because they were listening to what I had to say. As a generalization … all the ‘how to present’ rules are stupid. If you have something good to say, and you say it in a compelling, believable, likeable way, the rest of the stuff just gets in the way. It’s all about the message. If you know, and like, your message just deliver it in as comfortable a ‘behavior’ style you want.

Nuts to all the book rules.

– Forced passion

This one drives me nuts too. It’s kind of like speaking with exclamation points hoping the exclamation points travel through the ether between you and your audience and pricks them in the ass to make them stand up and yell “hell yeah!”

Some people shout.

Some people create sentences which they purposefully amplify the end.

Some people shake a fist, or pound a table or make some ‘exclamatory’ gesture just so everyone knows they are passionate about whatever they are talking about.

Sometimes they don’t really want to do this shit but someone suggests “show them you are passionate” and … well … the wheels start to fall of the good presentation wagon.

Why?

It’s all forced.

And it’s a shame because most presenters are actually passionate about something related to their topic <assuming you do the three draft method – me, edit, reader – in that order>. And they don’t need to be overt to communicate it. They just need to share their passion in whatever way they exude it.

I have been extremely passionate on a topic … and all I did was talk. I said how she felt and what I believed. And you know what? People believed me. they may not have been persuaded … but they believed what I had to say.

Here is the bottom line. If you care, it will show. You need not tell someone you are passionate. In fact … here you go … a rule.

Never say in a presentation, meeting or discussion … “I am passionate about ‘x’.”

Prove it without ever saying it.

– Forced relevance <or forced theme>

I almost split this into two but they are just two sides of the same coin. In an attempt to make their topic relevant to either the audience or the environment <you can choose either> a presenter can go to some fairly absurd lengths.

They can use a joke which isn’t really relevant until you explain why.

Well, let me say this, 99% of the time if you are using a joke or come up with some forced relevance it means you are working too hard. Go back to the simple first aspect and think about what it is you want to say. If it isn’t compelling or understandable, a joke or forced metaphor or forced semi-topical linkage isn’t going to help.

In fact it can hurt.

How?

Because it is extraneous. And extraneous things and activity tugs the audience away from what you really want them to remember and say. I don’t usually get aggravated over this one instead I just get frustrated that the speaker doesn’t trust the topic is interesting enough, and it can be presented interestingly enough, to simply present it.

Lastly.

If I want to connect with the reader/listener with my last draft I have to put the screws down on the persuasion aspect.

And I would suggest you think about this slightly differently than many people talk about it – think about the fact what you are saying has to meet some price/value equation.

Simplistically … this is about alignment.

And, no, this isn’t about ‘first impressions’ because a presentation is a compilation/summary of impressions.

We all know this <but I will remind you anyway> … we are evaluating things all the time.

And even if we recognize that we are evaluating <like in viewing a presentation> we still don’t even recognize much of the evaluation that takes place because much of it is actually usually automatic, subconscious.

There has been a boatload of research done on evaluation which I will not bore you with … but will share a cliff notes summary of key points:

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This process of evaluation can be broken down into the rising and falling of two perceptions: Perceived Cost and Perceived Benefit. To be clear, the cost of something is not just money. Cost is the receipt of something negative or the release of something positive whereas Benefit is the release of something negative or the receipt of something positive.

Any time a value presentation is made, be it a candy bar in the checkout rack at a grocery store, a pair of earrings online, or a proposal to marry, there is an initial phase when you open your mind “file cabinet” and pull the “folder” associated with whatever value is being presented. As you open this folder, certain things will jump out at you, influencing your initial perceived cost and benefit of the value presented. What is in that folder, what items you pull first, and how much each item affects you depends on two things:

Your history with the value presented

How it is initially presented

It’s also important to note here that the point at which a visitor makes a commitment to the transaction is not the same point at which they complete the transaction. The time between the commitment and the transaction should be as short and simple as possible. The more complex and time-consuming it is, the more chance the frustration of the transaction process or the “cold feet” effect could keep it from happening.

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Look.

Like it or not … even our presentations are being evaluated through this wacky thing called heuristics.

Pricing/value cues abound within presentations … believability cues abound within presentations … persuasion cues abound within a presentation … and you have to be aware that they will scream at the top of their lungs even if you aren’t looking at them.

Why do I say that?

You can even be silent and be giving a price or value cue.

For example.

Bach was a master of ‘negative space’ … building masterful musical combinations … he also used silences that are as eloquent and thought provoking as notes, tempo and syncopation.

<I used Bach because I tend to believe most of us who have built a presentation kind of feel like a composer>.

By the way.

While you may be thinking I am only discussing big important presentations which have been rehearsed and rehearsed … but this discussion actually pertains to almost any size of any draft or communications.

In the end.

Value is kind of like … well … the world and life

In fact … it reminds me of something I read:

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“The world is not as simple as we like to make it out to be. The outlines are often vague and it’s the details that count.

Nothing is really truly black or white and bad can be a disguise for good or beauty … and vice versa without one necessarily excluding the other.

Someone can both love and betray the object of its love … without diminishing the reality of the true feelings and value.

Life and business <whether we like to admit it or not> is an uncertain adventure in a diffuse landscape whose borders are constantly shifting where all frontiers are artificial <therefore unique is basically artificial in its inevitable obseletion> where at any moment everything can either end only to begin again … or finish suddenly forever … like an unexpected blow from an axe.

Where the only absolute, coherent, indisputable and definitive reality … is death. We have such little time when you look at Life … a tiny lightning flash between two eternal nights.

Everything has to do with everything else.

Life is a succession of events that link with each other whether we want them to or not.”

——–

Arturo Perez Revarte

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That all may be too poetic in discussing something like giving presentations, communications, creating drafts and persuasion … but simply put … “everything has to do with everything else.”

“Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it.

Values is the fact we trust each other.

And, culture?

Culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. That matters because most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

—-

Fredrick Backman

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“You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.”

—–

Colin Powell

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Well.

The relationship between secrets and culture and community is one which is fraught with contradictions, conflict and humanness.

I imagine this conflict is driven by the natural chafing between self-interest and community <I have called this community individualism & Enlightened Individualism in the past>.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We talk a lot about community and team and all of that good stuff. And we talk about it with good intentions. The problem is that true community demands some sacrifice.

Therein lies our big secrets.

On occasion we decide self-interest is more important than sacrifice.

Uhm.

This is a version of ‘what you can get away with.’

That phrase sounds horribly horrible. It suggests nefarious type behavior. But the truth of it is most of us see what we can get away with on some very personal day-to-day less-than-nefarious type stuff.

We cut some corners.

We maybe don’t tell people how we truly feel <or who we truly are>.

We steal some post-it notes.

These are our little secrets.

We may even have some bigger personal secrets that we decide are just not things we want to share <these are not nefarious … just personal>.

Regardless.

For many of us … our behavior arcs toward what we can get away with. That doesn’t mean it is completely unethical, or some abhorrent behavior, just that while norms set a ‘median’ standard guideline Life is constantly suggesting ‘but this one time you can get away with doing this.”

The problem resides with the friction between culture & community and self.

What I mean by that is the stronger & more powerful the cultural community norm is the bigger your secret becomes if you avoid the norms.

This secret takes on exponential size if you start believing that the norms that are good for you are good … and the ones that don’t match up with what you believe is your self-interest are bad.

You only accept the existence of the formal and informal cultural norm structure that constitutes accepted community construct … only as long as that suits your purposes.

Your big secret, therefore, doesn’t have to do with your own behavior but rather in your non-belief ,if not overall disdain> for the community norms.

This leads me to hate.

Why hate?

When you decide to see what you can get away with you have to mentally divide community into “we” and “they.” And in doing so you make ‘we’ good <which suggests what you can get away with is on the side of good> and you make ‘they’ bad.

This is a simplistic tactic for attempting to carry the burden of a big secret.

Hate is simple.

Hate can be an incredibly powerful empowering emotion.

Why?

In this scenario, using hate, the world becomes much easier to understand and less confusing, in the scheme of things, if you divide everything into friends & enemies, good & evil, right & wrong and a basic we & they.

This helps us because the world is strewn with conflict. Not just physical war but of ideas, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. Cultures, communities and classes are bombarded with conflict after conflict. And maybe because of the sheer amount of conflict one of the first things we do is pick sides. We choose a side to stand on because … well … it is easier. It is easier than thinking or, even more difficult, trying to hold parts of two ideas which appear in conflict in our heads at the same time.

And once we have chosen a side we then go out and seek some information, or ‘facts’, to confirm not only what we believe but the side we have chosen – this permits us to maintain the status quo and chug along with Life as ‘normal.’

Oh.

The last thing we do is demonize, or dehumanize, the other side. We diminish them. Make them, their thoughts & ideas, lesser than.

……. making “they” smaller ……..

I would suggest this all just makes you smaller as a person <carrying around a big secret>.

Big secrets make small people … yeah … unfortunately all of us become smaller with a big secret.

And this smallness is compounded by the unfortunate fact that you become even smaller when ‘we’ are the people who others HAVE to keep big secrets from … because they believe, and know, we cannot handle them <or don’t believe in them>.

All secrets carry a weight to them.

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“To agree to keep a secret is to assume a burden.”

—

Sam Harris

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In fact … I could argue that all knowledge is a burden. It carries a weight of responsibility with regard to what you do with it … how you act because you have it … as well as how you think about you, and others, with it.

Having accepted knowledge you have made an agreement with it. I tend to believe we don’t think about this. We accept knowledge as … well … maybe like income earned – disposable income in fact. We worked for it, we earned it and it is now ours to spend as we choose.

But knowledge is actually more like freedom. It is an unalienable right but it is also a privilege … and therefore one assumes a responsibility to it.

Uhm.

And with responsibility comes burden. Which almost sounds odd in that something with ‘free’ in it also carries such a heavy burden.

Maybe I should just suggest that nothing really comes for free … everything has something attached to it.

Knowledge?

Responsibility … the burden of responsibility. And that is a weight you carry … one which can be as light or as heavy as you make it. But. It is a weight nonetheless. One which you learn to carry well or carry poorly.

Knowledge tests our ability … and our character … with regard to how well we can carry this weight. It tests how strong we are .. once again … in ability an character.

Having said that <and most likely having a number of people feeling a little unconfutable thinking about knowledge that way>.

Secrets are a completely different level of a knowledge burden.

And secrets are tricky.

Some are thrust upon you … unwanted but yet yours nonetheless.

Some are gifted you … carefully shared by someone who believes the weight it carries is too much for themselves … alone.

Some are just yours … built by you and carried by you.

But regardless of how you assume the responsibility of a secret … it is also knowledge. And therefore it also carries a burden … a responsibility … and a weight.

I don’t have the scale to weigh them but my guess is that a knowledge secret exponentially weighs more than a traditional knowledge.

I also don’t have any research but I also tend to believe, just like extra physical weight, as soon as we start feeling the extra weight of a secret … we seek to shed it.

Therein lies the true test of character.

Therein lies how big secrets can make small people.

All knowledge tests you. Secrets test you even more.

Knowledge, and secrets, take a strength of self to carry its weight.

The weight of responsibility of having the knowledge, the weight of freedom knowledge typically gives us … and the weight of character that knowledge either makes you bigger or makes you smaller.

Whew.

That is a lot of extra weight we have accepted by taking on these secrets.

And this is where I bring in good … as in good people doing good things … as in good versus almost good.

That sometimes very thin line can make a massive difference in life. That sometimes very thin line can decide whether your secret makes you bigger or smaller.

Look.

If you are clever enough, even if you embrace community, you can get away with a shitload of stuff. But cleverness does not eliminate the fact you gain a bigger secret burden with every action.

And you know what?

The “community” knows we struggle with this a individuals. In fact it has even created some ‘auxiliary precautions’ to help us avoid unnecessary secrets.

Huh?

This is James Madison’s Federalist Paper #51 or “if men were angels” argument:

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If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

“As a therapist, let me just say: almost every trauma survivor I’ve ever had has at some point said, ‘But I didn’t have it as bad as some people,’ and then talked about how other types of trauma are worse. Even my most-traumatized, most-abused, most psychologically-injured clients say this.

The ones who were cheated on, abandoned, and neglected say this.

The ones who were in dangerous accidents/disasters say this.

The ones who were horrifyingly sexually abused say this.

The ones who were brutally beaten say this.

The ones who were psychologically tortured for decades say this.

What does that tell you?

That one of the typical side-effects of trauma is to make you believe that you are unworthy of care. Don’t buy into it, because it’s nonsense. It doesn’t matter if someone else had it ‘worse.’

Every person who experiences a trauma deserves to get the attention and care they need to heal from it.”

—

hobbitsaarebas

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“It’s true, I suffer a great deal–but do I suffer well? That is the question.”

―

Thérèse de Lisieux

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“… victimization is a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization.”

—-

sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning

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Whew.

Believing you are unworthy of care.

I call this “victimhood backlash.”

Now.

This is different than feeling unworthy of love, respect or … well … unworthy of something or any of that type of thing.

In fact.

This is actually the exact opposite of a victim mentality.

This is when something truly bad has happened to you <you are a real victim of something> and you look around and say “whew, they are the real victims.” In a real sense this person then constructs an extremely viable narrative to suggest that while they are in a shithole … their shithole is nothing compared to some other people’s shithole.

This is not self deprecation … it is a sincere feeling that what you did or experienced was closer to ordinary rather than extraordinary.

But.

I say this unequivocally … even if someone is shrugging off help or maybe even adamantly opposing the help … a hole is a hole and you need help getting out of holes.

Someone may not think they are worthy of care, or asking for help … but they need it.

Anyway.

I have two thoughts on this ‘believing unworthy of care’.

First.

A hole is a hole.

If you are in a hole, it is a hole.

I have written this before … a shithole is a shithole. We are not in the shithole comparison business. All shitholes are dark, deep and often don’t have a visible ladder to get out of the shithole.

To me?

Horrible is horrible.

A black hole is a black hole.

And while maybe not all holes and abysses are created equal … all seem equally deep, dark & shitty when in one.

This may not be literally true … but figuratively I tend to believe that is how we view it when encountering some shit Life gives us which places us into some dark hole.

Second.

I do not believe that victimhood is some cultural crisis <the sociologists I highlight upfront do suggest that>.

Yeah.

The things for which we can publicly accept the fact we were a victim of has certainly increased. This doesn’t mean more shit, and shitholes, have occurred … it is just that it is now more acceptable to admit them and address them.

Can this get out of whack? Sure.

But a long as someone isn’t creating a shithole and claiming being a victim then .. well … a shithoe is a shithole.

I would suggest that we want people who feel like they are n some shithole because they were a victim of something to speak out regardless of whether an everyday schmuck like me may look at them and say “c’mon, be real, that’s Life” and maybe we should be focusing on how to better address them when they speak out.

We need less pandering and more reality management. We need less judgement and more dialogue.

We need to grow a dialogue culture. Rather than responding to comments or behaviors with less condemnation or judgement and more engagement to engage rather than repel <without increasing victim mentality but rather managing it>.

But we do not want anyone at anytime to believe that they are unworthy of care.

Anyway.

I can almost guarantee almost everyone will either slip into a hole or go crashing into a hole at some point in their Life.

And that person <which means, uhm, everyone> will need help getting out of it.

For if you permit someone to linger too long in the hole … well … the abyss will gaze into them. And inevitably find some dark corner in the mind that they will find a place to live, eat and breathe for years and years to come.

Just accept what I just said without shrugging or thinking “that’s some bad shit.”

<Most> Holes are fine in Life.

They are part of Life.

Regardless of whether the shithole is incredibly shitty or just basic shit they have the same intended conclusion — you just have to make sure you know how to get out of them.

Ah.

Which leads me back to the opening quote.

Someone who believes that they are unworthy of care.

I say that because you can spend a lot of time looking around at other shitholes thinking about how to get other people out of their shitholes … all the while ignoring your own shithole, avoiding finding a way out of our own shithole and, maybe the worst, if you gaze long enough into an abyss … anyone’s abyss … it will gaze into you.

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“And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

–

<Beyond Good and Evil> Friedrich Nietzsche

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Look.

I have had this debate a zillion times … the one where you discuss who has it worse.

Who is going through tougher times.

Who has actually gone through a tougher time.

Maybe even discussing a bad moment in life as horrible, but always discussing ‘horrible’ relative to other horribleness.

And while it is most likely true that, regardless of your situation, someone somewhere has it worse than you do … that thought only seems to offer some false comfort nor does it really offer any solutions.

To me … comparing bad situations is not only not very helpful but it also tends to suggest the wrong thing to me – “my suffering isn’t equal to your suffering.” Which tends to lead to “I don’t believe I am worthy of care.”

Bad. Wrong.

I do not believe we should be in the shithole comparison business.

A shit hole is a shithole and anyone in a shithole is just as worth of care as anyone else in a shithole.